Adam Wootton

Biography

Adam first came to Keele as an undergraduate student in 2009 and has remained here since, first teaching on the Foundation Year in 2013 as he began his PhD. In 2017 he was appointed to the post of Teaching Fellow in Mathematics, Computing and Physics, before he then completed his PhD (Fusion of heterogeneous data in the context of non-destructive testing and structural health monitoring using echo state networks) in 2018. He transitioned to an Education and Scholarship lectureship in 2019. In 2020, he became the Foundation Year's Director of Education.

In addition to his responsibilities as Director of Education, Adam currently leads on Computer Science for the Foundation Year. He maintains a keen interest in novel applications of machine learning technique in the domain of non-destructive testing and shoehorns AI into his teaching wherever possible.

Research and scholarship

Adam's PhD thesis was about the combination together of distinct modalities of data pertaining to civil infrastructure using Echo State Networks, an artificial intelligence technique that utilises a short-term memory of past inputs. He will usually refer to this as 'using computers to stop bridges falling down'. He continues to maintain an interest in this area and to publish research on this topic.

Adam is also active in scholarship, placing an emphasis on innovating in order to provide the best possible student experience. He has successfully obtained TIPS funding for a project to work on developing a role-play learning module on the Bletchley Park codebreakers, and has published on topics such as structuring Computer Science modules, best approaches to the development of asynchronous materials and optimising blended learning.

Teaching

Module leader for:

FYO-00187 Academic and Personal Skills for Computer Scientists and Mathematicians

FYO-00221 Foundations of Computational Theory and Programming

FYO-00225 Advancing Programming

FYO-00227 Advancing Computing: Client-Led Collaborative Design

FYO-00275 Foundations of Computational Theory and Programming (15 credits)

FYO-00286 Introduction to Computer Science - B

FYO-00290 Advancing Computer Science - B